


Take Me Out With the Crowd

by goldenegg31



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Ancient Rome, Angst, Dark, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-05
Updated: 2017-04-05
Packaged: 2018-10-15 05:44:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10551058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goldenegg31/pseuds/goldenegg31
Summary: Rory didn't wonder why House enjoyed watching others in fear and pain, not when he could remember living in an empire where popular entertainment was fights to the death.





	

**Author's Note:**

> No actual violence, but mentions of Romans enjoying watching violent contests.

“Killing us quickly wouldn't be any fun. And you need fun, don't you? That's what Uncle and Auntie were for, wasn't it? Someone to make suffer. I had a P.E. teacher just like you. You need to be entertained... and killing us quickly wouldn't be entertainment.”  
– Rory Williams, Doctor Who 6x04  
    
“But nothing is so damaging to good character as the habit of lounging at the games, for then it is that vice steals subtly upon you through the avenue of pleasure.” – Seneca, Moral Epistle 7 (Translated by Richard M. Gummere. The Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard UP, 1917-25. 3 vols.: Volume I)

\---------

Yes, the teacher – ironically named Mr. Pleasant – had really existed. But he knew that because Mr. Pleasant had been quite as mean as Rory had said, Amy wouldn’t guess why he had really mentioned the man. She wouldn’t know that he was trying to keep her from finding out the real reason he knew why House would enjoy watching others’ misery. The immediate danger might have kept her from asking him right away, but Amy wasn’t one to let sleeping dogs lie. If she’d wondered how he’d been able to figure out exactly the right thing to say to save their lives, she wouldn’t stop asking until she got an answer.  
   
He would tell her almost anything, but not this. Amy had asked whether he remembered growing up as a Roman and he’d given her some answers about that fake life. They’d talked about his Roman family, about eating Roman foods (Amy had asked in a half-disgusted voice whether he’d eaten dormice), and about “the invasion of the hot Italians,” but she hadn’t asked about the Games (and he certainly would never have raised the subject). In school, they had learned about gladiators, and the two of them had watched Gladiator with their friends, but nothing in the twenty-first century could have prepared someone for the experience of actually being in an arena and watching gladiators fight. He wouldn’t have known how to describe it if she had asked.  
   
Looking back, he was disgusted with himself, remembering the bloodlust that had consumed him along with the rest of the crowd. It was no good telling himself that all his memories of being a Roman were fake – they felt real and that was what mattered. When he woke up as Roranicus, he was already in Britain, so he never went to any fights, but he remembered going to them. He remembered going to many of them. He remembered being in the Coliseum when it was filled with fighters and lions and not a ruin. He remembered seeing the retiarii trap their opponents in their nets, and condemned prisoners thrown to wild beasts. And all for entertainment, all for fun. Because – and this was the reason he could never tell Amy – he had enjoyed watching it. Oh, yes, there had been a large part of Roranicus (the part that was Rory Williams from Leadworth) that was sickened by it, but the Roman in him had enjoyed watching men fight each other, had not seen anything wrong with people dying as a sporting event. 

That was how he had known House would enjoy watching them hurt and run and fight for their lives. Because he had been in House’s place. He understood all too well how someone could dehumanize another person so much that they enjoyed their suffering. 

He was glad that those memories had saved Amy’s and his lives, but it’s not possible to atone for something that you can remember doing, but technically never actually did. What do you do when you can’t rectify your mistake by resolving to act differently in the future? Because of course he’s never going to ask the Doctor to take them to gladiator fights. He knows that he has done nothing wrong, and that he is nothing like House, but convincing himself of that is another thing altogether.


End file.
